Mistborn Diary — Book One: The Final Empire

Note: This post contains spoilers for The Final Empire, Book One of the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.

I had never heard of the Mistborn series before. I picked up the first book on my friend Ruta’s recommendation, knowing absolutely nothing about it. AAANDD I was completely blown away.

Throughout the trilogy, I kept WhatsApping Ruta about how I was feeling, what I thought would happen, and what I thought the endings would be.

This is not a conventional retrospective review. What follows is a lightly edited record of what I Whatsapped Ruta while reading The Final Empire. I have retained the dates and times because they capture something hindsight cannot: how confidently I made predictions, how quickly I changed my mind, and how completely this book took over my days.

The theories begin

24 May 2026, 5:37:26 PM — 25% into the first book

Twenty-five per cent into the first book and loving it already. I have the following few guesses for the series 😄

• There seems to be a Kelsier, Marsh and Mare love triangle—or some story or past interconnecting the three. Marsh has just been introduced and has agreed to sit in the next meeting.
• It seems sometime in the near future, Vin might face her brother Reen and will be forced to make a choice.
• One of the insiders will be an infiltrator. 😄

Whoaaaa!! Are the paragraphs at the start of every chapter, about Kwaan and someone, a hint of what is coming? Until now, I thought these paragraphs were about Kell and Mare’s story, but now I think it has something to do about about Vin and Elend!

I cannot keep this book down - I started reading yesterday and I am already at 52% in the first book.

25 May 2026, 1:10:48 PM

OMG, OMG. I am so in love with Mistborn. Damn, that book is amazing. I am reading fantasy and magic after so, so long.

Sanderson builds a new world in front of you. It is not the kind of magical world I remember from reading Harry Potter when I was younger. This is a fictional world I am encountering as an adult—filled with philosophical questions, the greyness and selfishness of human nature, friendship and everything else.

My Vin and Elend problem

25 May 2026, 10:49:50 PM

Oh, I am not liking the story of Vin and Elend. I feel it is unnecessarily stretched. Not even six months and only a handful of meetings in, Vin starts liking Elend—and she keeps important information from the group. I didn’t like this part at all.

I just wish the second book does not revolve around them. I hope it is not about them.

Oh man, I am so disappointed. I am so not liking Elend and Vin’s subplot. I think the story has derailed.

Finishing the first book

26 May 2026, 9:21:00 AM I finished the first Mistborn book. Four stars from me.

Loved the plot, twists and storytelling. I didn’t feel any part of the book was slow. I finished it in one go and didn’t put it down once. I am not going to start the second book now. I want to remain in the feeling of loving this book.

26 May 2026, 9:25:32 AM

I loved the book, but I didn’t like Elend and Vin’s subplot. I also didn’t like that Elend becomes king. Anybody else would have been okay as king. I so, so, so, so wish I had read this book in college. Maybe would have loved Vin and Elend then.

I also super, super love that line about Reen—that he died saving her.

Towards the end, I thought the Lord Ruler was like Sazed: that his young form killed Kell and then Vin saw an older man. But I did not guess that Rashek himself would be the Lord Ruler.

I loved all the twists:

• Rashek is the Lord Ruler.
• Kell is dead—I so did not see this coming.
• Marsh is still alive.
• Reen died saving Vin.

I had also thought that when Vin burned gold—the Eleventh Metal—and saw the Lord Ruler’s younger reflection, she might be able to kill that reflection with a dagger and he would die. But that was not how it happened.

26 May 2026, 10:40:24 AM

There is no single character that I liked. I loved them all. I loved the friendship between the core team: Kell. Dockson. Ham. Breeze. Sazed. I loved how each one has a unique relationship with the others.

More than Vin and Elend’s story, I would have loved to read the subplot between Mare, Kell and Marsh—the mature greyness of their characters and their story.

It seems that if I had read the book in college, I might have loved Vin and Elend’s subplot. But reading it now, at 38, I wanted to know why Mare chose Kell, how Kell and Marsh were around Mare, what their relationships were with one another, and how they evolved.

This is Part 1 of a four-part Mistborn series.

• Book One: The Final Empire — Diary (you are here)
• Book Two: The Well of Ascension — Diary
• Book Three: The Hero of Ages — Diary
• Mistborn Kept Proving Me Wrong — A Retrospective